Destruction with a purpose: State police run practice drills at old Somerset Berkley school

Tuesday

Aug 5, 2014 at 8:05 PMAug 6, 2014 at 12:41 AM

Michael Holtzman Herald News Staff Reporter @MDHoltzman

SOMERSET — The Massachusetts State Police STOP team smashed in the door of Room 107 of the old Somerset Berkley Regional High School with a homemade 33-pound ram tool.

But it shouldn’t matter much. Except to help train the Special Tactical Operations troopers from the southeastern part of the state.

Tuesday morning, under state police Sgt. Pardo Montagano, team leader of one of three teams that total 40 members, the sound of flash-bang distraction devices and firing of simulation plastic projectiles filled the empty halls and classrooms of the old school building.

“We train four days a month,” Montagano said of his troopers from throughout the state, including new SWAT team trainees. A couple members of his 13-person team live in town, and helped arrange this unique experience.

“This is perfect. The school’s coming down,” said Montagano, whose troopers will return to the high school on Thursday. “You don’t get this that often.”

The new $82.4 million high school next door is ready to open in a month.

During the STOP team’s breaching exercise, with a half-dozen troopers in full camouflage gear, two troopers, called breachers, pry the wooden classroom door with a multi-purpose firefighting tool called a Halligan bar, and then use the steel ram’s rounded end to push through in no time.

A STOP team member, using the 1.5-second explosion delay, tosses a flash-bang — designed to throw off the bad guys with lights and sound — between the one-piece chair desks.

The STOP team also was practicing for situations like hostage undercover rescues, including when one of their own gets discovered and needs to be extracted from a dangerous scene, Montagano said.

The real life-looking Simunition gun they shot in classrooms allowed the state police team to practice “force-on-force” encounters. Firefighters wear protective eyewear, so the projectiles don’t cause harm.

Though it was not set up for this training, sometimes the fake bullets will leave red or blue marks to delineate the bad guys and show results of the gun battle.

They pretty much had the run of the first and second floors of a portion of the old school, adjacent to a section the Somerset Fire Department using using for training this week.

The STOP marked areas with yellow crime scene tape to ensure no one came too close to their training area.

This area’s team includes the region south of Boston to the Cape and Islands, as well as to the borders of Rhode Island and Connecticut. Its armored truck is housed at the state police barracks in Dartmouth.